Game on Long Island Will be Reunion for Duke, Denver Coaches

Although the travel to Bethpage, N.Y., this weekend won’t be equidistant for the Denver and Duke lacrosse teams, the location is the center point for an enduring friendship between two of the games greatest head coaches

Both Denver’s Bill Tierney and Duke’s John Danowski grew up less than 10 miles Bethpage High School, the site of Saturday afternoon’s contest between the No. 4 Blue Devils and the No. 10 Pioneers, and the coaches are looking forward to the reunion as well as a great weekend of lacrosse.

“It’s weird because you don’t usually talk to opposing coaches the week of a game,” said Tierney at a press conference on Tuesday. “But I spoke to John this morning, and we are both really excited about this weekend.”

Tierney, a Levittown native, and Danowski, an East Meadow native, were able to find a date where their respective teams had an opening and scheduled the game together along with a third, interconnected member, John DeTommaso, who played for Tierney at John Hopkins before coaching alongside Danowski at Hofstra.

“John is the Assistant Superintendent of Schools at Bethpage, so this all came together from this triangular relationship,” said Tierney. “At first you kind of think about it, playing at a high school, because its such a bi- time game, but they have done an amazing job so far. They’re bigger crowds in lacrosse, but none more intimate than this weekends.”

The Bethpage Educational Foundation is sponsoring the event this weekend, and the new state-of-the art athletic complex was built by the local school district as well as the Town of Oyster Bay.

For the event, the town is adding 2,500 seats to its already 2,700-seated complex, which has been sold out for this weekend.

The teams will take part in a youth lacrosse clinic on Friday afternoon, according to Tierney.

Tierney and Danowski have collected multiple national championships and national coach of the year awards, and bring their respective programs into the event following successful 2010 campaigns. Duke is the defending NCAA champion, while Denver is coming off a season where it clinched an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament by virtue of winning their conference.

As for the teams that will take the field on Saturday, Duke’s ranking has fluctuated from as high as No. 3 to as low as No. 15 in the national rankings this season, while Denver enters the top 10 for the first time this season.

“We haven’t been able to get our signature win yet. We’ve been able to beat some teams that have gone in and out of the top 20, but haven’t been able to get that win against a top 5 team, and that’s what this program really needs so we can establish ourselves this year,” said Tierney.

Denver will be without senior midfielder Andrew Lay, who suffered a season-ending jaw injury last week in practice.

Lay joins fellow senior midfielder Pat Rodgers and sophomore attackman Colin Scott on the injured reserve, which has forced Tierney to search the depth chart for new talent.

“Hayden Schutte and Harrison Archer have been waiting in the wings for us, and they moved into the lineup without skipping a beat,” said Tierney of replacing Lay. “We have two of our top three midfielders out for the year, but when you have depth you are always looking for young men to step up, and we certainly feel good about the young guys ability to do so.”

Tierney noted that last weekend the Pioneers top six midfielders were composed of two freshman and four sophomores, but isn’t concerned with the infusion of youth.

“The key this week is to shore up the defense,” said Tierney. “Some teams we’ve played we felt we could dictate what we wanted them to do, but this Duke team isn’t like that. They have a ton of experienced kids and we are going to have our hands full.”

One of the more pivotal match-ups will pit Duke’s CJ Costabile against Denver’s Chase Carraro in the face-off circle

Although Carraro has won 59.2 percent of his faceoffs this season, and is much improved from last season, Tierney acknowledges Costabile as a looming threat.

“CJ Costabile is a dynamic athlete. He is one of the best in the game,” said Tierney of the player who won the go-ahead faceoff in last years national championship game and scored the game-winning goal only seconds later. “It’s very rare in lacrosse that you have to prepare for a team’s defensive player as if he is an offensive player, but CJ is one of those rare kids.”

While Denver prepares for Costabile, Duke must do the same for the Pioneers’ Mark Matthews, who is third in the nation with 2.89 goals per game, leading a Denver offense that ranks second in both scoring and assists.

Both defenses will have their hands full come Saturday afternoon as the game has the potential to be an offensive shoot-out.

During those hours of intense competition, there will be a rivalry brewing between the opposing coaches. Once the game ends, that rivalry will dissipate with a handshake, and a friendship will be restored.